NYC City Train Tunnel Project Could Tie Up Traffic For Three Years

Traffic jams could afflict New York City’s heavily traveled West Side Highway for three years as a multibillion-dollar train tunnel is built under the Hudson River, draft proposals obtained by Reuters show, feeding concern about an area already disrupted by massive real estate development, REUTERS reports.

The draft, obtained from a transportation sector source, reveals for the first time the actual work necessary to begin building the massive tunnel linking New York and New Jersey. It represents a marquee component of Amtrak’s $24 billion Gateway Project to repair and expand the heart of the critical and lucrative U.S. northeast transportation corridor.

The plan is expected to become part of the draft environmental impact statement to be released next summer.

The program could create 200,000 construction jobs and generate between roughly $2 and $4 of economic benefits for every dollar spent, Amtrak said in a report released on Monday. Construction would not begin until at least 2019, according to public records.

The new tunnel could cost between $5 billion and $7 billion, a transportation industry executive familiar with the project told Reuters on the condition of anonymity because the figures are early non-public estimates. Read more at REUTERS.